Saturday, October 22, 2011

What difference does a year make?

I could be doing my tax. I could be looking for a new job. I could ask you to note that I'm using the word 'could' and not 'should'. I could be planning world domination.

In the true spirit of procrastination, I fire up blogger. Wow, has it really been more than a year?

The different brainspace has been ... in other brainspaces.

I have an adult son now. Sort of. The dreamer reached a chronological milestone, and had a bunch of friends meet up with him at a bar to celebrate his 18th birthday. OK, it was a gaming bar, which isn't such a bad thing. Gamers don't tend towards punch-ups and glassing, or anything physical, really. And he didn't even have a hangover the next day.

For the purposes of posterity, I should take this opportunity to reflect on how his different brainspace intersects with the larger world view. Ahem.

Let's run through the NT checklist:
Enrolled to vote - check.
Income - check.
Job - has applied for an apprenticeship, and made it through three sets of interviews and aptitude tests. Awaiting the yea/nay letter due in November.
Social life - check.
Relationship - check.

Sounds great? And it is.

Oops. I must have my Parental Bragging Hat on. That's the one I wear when acquaintances and distant relatives ask me "How are things going?", just before they start telling me about Their Dear Johnny, who has just graduated with honours in and become engaged to and is already an executive at and he's only sixteen.
Alrighty then.

Reality Hat on, and let's try that again with some other popular markers of adulthood:

Driving licence - 4 attempts so far on the written test.
It's multiple choice ffs. He tells me he 'overthinks' the questions, and that it couldn't possibly be that easy. It's possible that he's terrified of the next step - actually being in control of a tonne of fast-moving metal. He just doesn't think that fast. I'm more than slightly nervous about that part too, so I'm not pushing the licence test too hard.

Education - I can say he 'finished school', but usually omit the part about how he failed to complete any assessment in any subject, so doesn't actually have an official piece of paper.

The income - It's a disability pension. It gives him a bit of spending money. Which he does. Spend, I mean. Usually the day he's paid. Can you say 'impulse spending'? On the bright side, his impulses tend toward good books.

I'm terrified about the job application. It was for an apprenticeship with a large company. I'm sure that he did well in the aptitude tests - considering that they were basic numeracy and literacy tests. I can even stretch to imagining that he was as capable as most incoherent teenagers in the interviews. Where I see impending doom, if he was offered the job, would be his capability to be 'present' for 8 hours at a stretch, 5 days each week. He wouldn't have enough time left each day to shower and eat! I have no idea whether it's the medication, or the drifting away on the computer at nights and needing sleep during the day, I just know that it's impossible to keep him upright. Turn away for 5 minutes and he's asleep again. He still doesn't have either the self-discipline, or the short-term memory, to remember to eat breakfast.

Aside from that, he has a wonderful life.

The girlfriend (I think I'll call her 'Red') decides on their social life, walks in the front door, nags him into getting out of bed and getting dressed in time. If she doesn't come and get him, he doesn't leave the house (or often, the bed). He still takes 2 hours to have a shower and get dressed. Minimum. She knows that if a social event begins at 2pm, she'll have to be here at 10am and spend the next 4 hours nagging and threatening.
Luckily, Red is a 'type A personality'. She bullies, nags, decides, tells him what to do, threatens a bit more, and it works. It takes hours, but they go out and have a good time.

Maybe I'm a bit over the nagging after 18 years, but she's stuck around for 8 months now and seems to be enjoying it.

I think I may have to hand over my Carer's Allowance.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll move on to the more immediate crisis of three Year 11 assignments due Monday. Yesterday, they were 'easy' and 'almost done'. Now, they are 'impossible' and he 'may as well quit school now'.